


for eternity and longer

by lunaticmeap



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e01 Across The Universe, Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, Except S8, Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Language, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Unrequited Love, not that we're even getting anywhere near there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-06 08:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18384461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaticmeap/pseuds/lunaticmeap
Summary: Shiro taught Keith how to ride a hoverbike on a blessedly clear day. And it was the first time Keith realised that Shiro could easily take his breath away, made him feel so irrationally silly at times whilst looking too cool for Keith’s sanity.And Keith fell. Unexpectedly, softly, like the rain that started with a few drops and turned into a widespread downpour that dampened the earth.When Shiro came along, Keith only thought to keep his feelings hidden. And then the flowers showed up, and Keith was torn between keeping his life or keeping his feelings for someone who would never return.





	1. Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith fell and Shiro flew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, would you be so kind as to fall in love with me?_   
>  _You see, I’m trying._   
>  _I know you know that I like you, but that’s not enough._   
>  _So if you will, please fall in love._   
> 
> 
> [Would You Be So Kind? - dodie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ypnr33sEmg&t=2s)

Shiro really was something else.

Keith didn’t know what, but he wasn’t the usual folks that took a glance at Keith and realised he wasn’t worth the trouble. Usual folks didn’t pay attention and gave Keith an opportunity to get into the Galaxy Garrison after having their ride stolen. Nor did they stuck around to help Keith transition into what would become the peak of his academic life, and offered to help him fix up a hoverbike that a friend of his dad’s had left him.

(And the usual folks didn’t look _that_ hot in a tank top, lying underneath said hoverbike with his muscles gleaming in the afternoon sun. They just didn’t, _okay?!_ )

Perhaps that was why Keith found it so easy to like Shiro. He was just so unlike everyone in his life that it was impossible for Keith to not notice the kindness from every single act that Shiro did for him.

Shiro taught Keith how to ride a hoverbike on a blessedly clear day. And it was the first time Keith realised that Shiro could easily take his breath away, made him feel so irrationally silly at times whilst looking too cool for Keith’s sanity. In other words, it was the moment when Keith realised he had a crush on this strange hot dude that really was more of a giant lovable teddy bear than the prodigious ex-cadet, now senior officer of the Galaxy Garrison.

He should have seen it coming when Shiro told him that Adam had asked him out. Afterall, it wasn’t like Keith was ever going to confess, nor was there chance that Shiro could ever commit to a relationship with him whilst keeping his job. _Adam is cool_ , he reasoned with himself. Shiro also seemed happier than usual when Adam came around. So he let them be, and tried to quell his own heart.

Yet, Keith found himself in love unexpectedly - because how exactly could he ever plan to be so enamoured by something as simple as eating together? Shiro, with his jokes about the prick that transferred from NASA’s main branch to the Garrison and pasta on his fork, had wormed his way into Keith’s heart by simply sitting there with tomato sauce on his face.

Keith pointed to his cheek. “You got something.”

Shiro blinked and wiped his cheek with a napkin, and yet somehow couldn’t get it.

“Bit higher.” Keith pointed again, and Shiro missed it again.

“No- here.” He took Shiro’s hand and guided it to the spot, dabbing the sauce away. Then Shiro smiled a little, thanking him, and area around his mouth folded over, making him look so unbelievably young, happy and spirited.

And Keith _fell_. Unexpectedly, softly, like the rain that started with a few drops and turned into a widespread downpour that dampened the earth.

Lying back on his bed that night, he also realised it was terrifying, because he didn’t know the first things about what he was feeling. The best description of it were waves and waves of happiness in the thought of Shiro, and a patience that he held for no one else. And he liked this feeling, so he went to sleep that night thinking about the many jokes he could say to see Shiro laugh more.

 

&&&

 

The day that Shiro was chosen for the Kerberos mission, he was radiating so much excitement that Keith almost contemplated on getting sunglasses to block the brightness of his smile.

“I got picked!” He practically yelled.

It took Keith three seconds of scrunching his eyebrows in confusion before he was also yelling excitedly and tackling Shiro into a hug.

They’ve been talking about Kerberos for more than a year, and it was seemingly everyone but Adam that was supportive of Shiro. Every time they briefly touched on Kerberos, all conversations seemed to halt at the tension between the couple. And Keith couldn’t understand why Adam, who had been nothing but the perfect partner and copilot for someone as intense as Shiro, became only a past relationship within the matter of months after the announcement.

“You should ask Shiro about it,” Adam said, his gaze fixated on the food in front of him. There was a tension in his voice that spoke volumes of frustration and pain.

“Was it because of Kerberos?” Keith asked between chews of his sandwich. It was a bit strange for them to be eating together without Shiro at the table. Then again, Shiro and Adam hadn’t spoken for a while. But Keith had Adam as his instructor for at least two of his classes, and he wasn’t about to avoid Adam because of something that didn’t involve him.

Adam stabbed a little more violently into the chicken than before. Keith took it as a cue to change the topic to something more pleasant.

As it turns out, he hadn’t needed to ask Shiro. He only needed to be at the right place at the right time: right outside Shiro’s office, after hours, on a certain Wednesday.

“Why not? He’s cleared all his physicals.” Commander Holt’s voice in Shiro’s office was clear and incredulous.

“I don’t care what…” Keith could vaguely hear admiral Sanda’s soft but stern tone. “This man is sick…” Keith widened his eyes. “...shouldn’t be sent...especially as far away as Kerberos… report to Flight Command.”

_Sick._ Keith repeated the word in his mind. Shiro had some sort of illness, and he shouldn’t be going to Kerberos. Adam had broken up with Shiro because Shiro wanted to go to Kerberos, even whilst he was sick.

And Shiro hadn’t told Keith a single word about it.

Commander Holt’s voice peaked again, “If he doesn’t go on this mission, neither do I.”

The room was silent, and then footsteps echoed. Admiral Sanda repeated, “I’ll report this to Flight Command.”

Keith scampered to hide before the door slid open, and the admiral stepped out with hands behind her back, unfazed as ever. But Keith was far from nonchalant, and he needed answers.

He found him the next day, fixing his hoverbike whilst still in his uniform that had only been unbuttoned slightly. But Keith couldn’t bring himself to be distracted when all he could feel was immense betrayal and rage.

“When were you gonna tell me?” He demanded. Shiro looked down from his bike.

“Oh. Hey, Keith,” he said calmly. It was pissing Keith off, because Shiro was so calm, unaffected, yet this entire situation should be the one fazing him the most.

“So what is it? Are you sick or something?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Shiro stuttered - a confusion that only served to buy him time to think.

Keith felt like a child that was coddled and protected from some tragic knowledge that could break him. And suddenly there was a cold fury burning inside him, consuming and ready to explode into words that he wouldn’t mean in the end. And he wanted to shake the truth out of Shiro, because he hadn’t wanted to believe that Shiro would hide something so drastic from him. Keith thought he was closer to him than that, but maybe not.

“Tell me the truth. Tell me what’s wrong. I’m not a little kid! I can handle it!”

Shiro turned his head, contemplative and perhaps conflicted. His gaze fell to the ground, and he sighed with a heaviness that drooped his expression. His following words were like a recount of a story that Keith could only reply with sympathetic eyes. And Keith almost wanted to comfort Shiro, who looked only tired and defeated as if he has had this conversation one too many times. But he was still _so_ angry that comfort became a passing thought.

“I’m going on the mission.” Determination was clear in every syllable of his words, and there were so much fire in Shiro’s eyes. He looked as fine as ever, and if nothing but the perfect candidate for the Kerberos mission.

Keith should probably support him to live his dream and be great. That’s what a good friend would have done, right? But what came out of his mouth was an uncouth question. “And you would throw your life away for it?”

Shiro bit his bottom lip, silent and unsure of how he could explain himself. “It’s important to me, Keith.”

“And you would leave everyone behind as well.” Keith stated, because it was a fact that was most painful to them all, and drove the most guilt into Shiro. And Keith was never merciful when he was driven with intent. “What about your friends? Colleagues, family, Adam...me. You’re risking everything for this mission, for what?”

“You sound like Adam,” Shiro said with a weak, bitter smile.

“Do you even realise-” He huffed and looked to the sky that was as blue as it could be with white wisps of clouds in the distance. Keith took a reorienting breath. “Have you ever seen what death does to those who are left behind?”

“I’m not going to die, Keith. It’s just my last mission.“

“Of course it is to you!” Keith clenched his fist tightly at his side. “But it isn’t just that, to me! It’s you and your entire life, and how could you just-”

“Because it’s my life, and I don’t have to explain it to anyone.” _Least of all to you_. He hadn’t had to say it, but it were always in the silence that everything was clearest.

Of course. _Of course_ , Keith would come to lose everyone that he has ever held dear in his heart, and _of course_ whatever illusion of a relationship that Keith ever thought he had with Shiro remained to be mere illusions. He was never a part of the equation that Shiro needed to consider because Keith was a nobody that clung too tightly to every figure that every showed him kindness.

It was naive and foolish. There was a lump in his throat that he couldn’t clear, and Keith didn’t have anymore words to say.

“I’m sorry to have intruded on it, then.” He clenched his jaw and turned on his heel. Without a glance back, Keith ran for his hoverbike and followed the wind sweeping across the desert, stewing this revelation in his gut as he chased his tears away with furious blinks at the stars above the shack. They reminded him too much of the sparkle in Shiro’s eyes.

All at once, Keith understood Adam’s feeling with absolute clarity. Adam loved Shiro, he probably still did, but it would tear him to pieces to see Shiro destroy himself, only to leave behind an unfillable gap of what had once been.

Adam couldn’t bear to watch and be a catalyst for Shiro’s self-destructing dreams to be realised. Neither could Keith.

Underneath the stars that night, he cursed them for giving him hope, and then taking it away.

 

&&&

 

Keith took his blessed weekend break at the shack away from everything and everyone. It was lonely, and the desert chill after sunset crept in quickly whilst Keith was still sitting on the veranda upfront. But he shrugged because it was just something he was going to have to get used to again.

That might also the culprit to blame for the cold that he seemed to have caught. He woke up feeling less than stellar that day, and an itchy throat that wouldn’t disappear no matter how many bottles of water he had gulped down.

Shiro caught him practicing maneuvers in the simulation room, and climbed into a neighbouring pod.

“Hey,” he said through the comms. Keith gave a hum in reply, and twisted his controls to spin his plane whilst on a downward dive. But the plane lost torque and he was hit with resistance that thrusted him up. He groaned.

“You’re tilting up too much to dive and spin at the same time.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t come in here to actually teach me that, though,” he rasped. Maybe his collar was on a bit tight. He needed more water.

“I was actually going to ask if you wanted me to finally teach you that trick with the hoverbike.”

Keith stared ahead into the screen. “Hm, what’s it for?”

“Pardon?”

“There’s a catch. You’re bribing me to do something.”

Shiro laughed. “No bribes. I just thought you might want to learn it soon because,... well I’m leaving in two months. And we might need a few weekends for you to learn it.”

Keith tried to think of a joking remark, but drew blank. He had tried to ignore the fact that Shiro was leaving soon, and would be gone for at least a year or so. And whilst Adam had done his best to avoid Shiro after their argument, Keith couldn’t bring himself to.

There were apologies: Shiro for not telling him, and Keith for running off. If Shiro had expected him to apologise for siding with Adam about Kerberos, then he hadn’t shown it, and neither was Keith going to give it.

It hadn’t stopped them from spending time with one another, though. Shiro was such an integral part of his life that it would be crippling for him to even consider it. He had his issues with Kerberos, but he would take all the time he could with the man who took his heart. Keith was selfish like that, and he blinded himself to remember Shiro as the person he was, then.

So Keith coughed a little to clear his throat, and turned off the simulation pod. And Shiro taught Keith how to do the dive over the cliff on his hoverbike.

Shiro also came to the shack with him on some weekends to make up for the lack of time he now had from preparing for Kerberos. And their time together involved a lot more time on the veranda to catch the night’s breeze than expected, so Keith’s cold persisted through the month.

The symptoms were on and off. Sometimes it was a blocked nose, sometimes it was the horrible dryness in his throat.  And one day, it was a coughing fit that made Shiro question whether Keith was alright.

“Just a bad cold.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

Shiro believed him, and left him be because he didn’t have time to micromanage everything when it was so close to the launch date.

The night before the launch, the Garrison’s caterers were dishing out a farewell dinner, and officers and cadets all crowded in the mess hall in a sort of makeshift cocktail party without the actual alcohol included (much to the disappointment of some). The tables were pushed back into the walls save for some smaller tables scattered around, and there was even the slightest sound of music filtering through the speakers. Keith couldn’t imagine commander Iverson coming up with that idea but apparently he did.

Keith had purposefully come in late just to grab the leftovers and make a quick getaway from the crowd. There was just something about the mix of people and the over excitement in the atmosphere that just wasn’t his niche. But his plan was foiled when he heard his name being called.

“Keith!” Shiro called from the the middle of the group of officers that he was surrounded by. He grabbed Keith by the arm and turned to a brunette in a purple dress to ask for a photo.

“Wha-” Keith started to pull away, but Shiro held firmly and gave him that stupidly blissful grin of his.

“Please, just for memories, Keith,” he asked, and Keith relented, folding his arms into himself as Shiro wrapped an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close. Keith could feel his face glowing a bright red as his arm pressed firmly into Shiro’s chest to feel the muscles under his stupidly thin grey shirt. Keith wondered if his panicking gay side was showing, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

“Smile!” The girl prompted them. Keith pulled his mouth upwards into what he hoped was a smile.

He felt Shiro shift slightly on his feet and tempted a glance upwards to find the sharp cut of his jawline right in front of Keith’s eyeline. And above that was a wide, genuine smile that had Shiro’s eyes wrinkling at the edge His hair hung over his eyes in a way that gave him an aura of mysteriousness. Keith sometimes forgot that Shiro could be so breathtaking by just fucking breathing.

A flash brought Keith him out of his thoughts; the girl was heading off somewhere with the promise to be back. There was that itch in his throat again, and he tried to cough softly. Shiro leaned down to his ear, speaking quietly. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” _Cough_ . “Why wouldn’t...” _Cough_. “...I be?”

Keith pasted a reassuring expression on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Adam standing at one of the tables behind Shiro. He seemed to have that constipated look as if a cadet had decided to ask to many questions for his patience, and he was trying his best not to lash out. Keith wished he brought his phone to capture this meme-worthy face. It might just be the only redeeming quality about this night.

He wondered if Shiro would appreciate that, even if a meme of his ex weren’t something conventional to give someone before they leave on a year long space exploration mission.

“I guess there were no reasons that you wouldn’t be.” Shiro chuckled then immediately turned regretful as he realised his words.

Keith wasn’t fine, Shiro knew that, because he was in a room full of people who were celebrating a mission that Keith so desperately wished Shiro hadn’t been picked for. But Keith could handle this for one night. It was Shiro’s time to be happy, and Keith wasn’t about to take it away from him.

“Sorry.” Shiro pulled his arm away. “That was…”

“It’s okay.” Keith shook his head. “You were caught in the moment. Would be hard not to be when you’ve been standing here long enough.”

“Yeah…” His words trailed off. “Keith, thank you, for at least tolerating me up until now, even when I know that you hate _this…_ entire thing.” He gestured around the room. Keith wondered if _this_ referred to the crowd or the entire purpose of the dinner, but he chose the former reason to be a far better conversation topic.

He shrugged. “I’ve been through worse celebrations. At least this one doesn’t have random people grinding on each other.”

“Oh, that means you haven’t been down the other corridor yet.” Shiro sipped at the drink he had procured from thin air. Keith didn’t know where it came from, but just that it did.

He was about to make a disgusted noise when the girl from before came up to hand Shiro a polaroid. “I sent the photo digitally to you, too.”

“Thanks Katie.” Taking a pen from his pocket, Shiro began to write something messily on the edge of the photo.

“Commander Iverson also wants you and Matt to finally make a small statement to everyone, by the way!” Katie called as she waved goodbye to them and disappeared back into the crowd.

“No chance you’ll stay around for that?” Shiro asked, capping his pen.

“Nah. I think I’ll skip.”

“Thought so. Here...” Shiro held the photo out to him, and Keith tentatively took it into his hands, as if it were made from thin glass crystals. And it might as well be, because it was the only physical memorabilia of them that they will ever have.

Keith cringed as he looked at it. His pining gay ass was showing, and Shiro laughed at his reaction. “It’s a great photo.”

“Of you, yeah. I look like I’m about ready to _yeet_ myself into oblivion.”

Shiro laughed again and patted his shoulder. “I gotta go. But I’ll see you before the launch tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Keith took a second too long to answer, because he honestly hadn’t thought about tomorrow, or the days after in fear of what he might find in the empty space that Shiro would leave for a while. His throat was itching again, and he rubbed a hand around his neck.

Shiro’s gripped tightened comfortingly. “It’s only a year, Keith. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I know.”

It was just a year. He could handle living just a year without Shiro’s constant presence beside him. _Shiro will be back_ , he thought, and like a mantra, he repeated it to himself. But it hadn’t made him any less sad as Shiro left.

He could only stare at the polaroid in silence, running his finger over the words.

[ _I’ll see you when I get back!_ _  
_ _\- Shiro <3 _ ](https://confusedswede.tumblr.com/post/176197882605/hanahaki-sheith)

“He even put a heart at the end,” Keith said to the walls of his room and was replied with only the hum of the lights above him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire story wouldn't have been possible if i hadn't seen [confusedswede's](https://confusedswede.tumblr.com/) amazing fanart of a Sheith Hanahaki AU and basically ran with it. Link is in the story and also [here](https://confusedswede.tumblr.com/post/176197882605/hanahaki-sheith)! Check it out and leave them some love!
> 
> This is such a clusterfuck i hope yall enjoy the rest of it when it does get there.  
> apologies in advance because i have no beta and im about as sane as the wicked witch of the west when i wrote and edit this at 1am. also i realised that my last chapter is already such a mess and im gonna somehow edit it over the next few days so at least yall can get some relief from this stupid angst throughout the entirety of this fic.
> 
> Come scream at me on [Tumblr](https://meapistrash.tumblr.com/)!


	2. In Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time until we meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You, you_   
>  _The name I miss._   
>  _Your breathing, your voice._   
>  _Your sounds that are painful even in my dreams._
> 
> [Sori - Lee Suhuyn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WczI5vaARzg)

That night after the rocket was launched, Keith coughed up a single red rose petal.

The doctor said there’s only one rose plant in his lungs thus far, and there was only two ways that things could go for him: make your unrequited love fall for you, or a surgery that would remove the plants, but also your every memory of them.

They hadn’t told him that he had a third option, and it was to never say a word and succumb to the flowers that were nestling in his chest. Keith figured that one out on his own.

The disease’s progression was slow, but it was there. And some days it felt like a bad sore throat. On others, it felt like he would need to rip his entire respiratory system out just to hack out a petal. The worse were the thorny stems that scratched his windpipe and the back of his throat painfully. Sometimes they also pierced into his mouth when he managed to dislodge them, and he could only take it and move on.

“I’m not going through the surgery.” He expressly said to Iverson.

“So you’re going to do whatever to woo that love of yours.”

“I can’t do that either, sir.”

Keith almost laughed at his situation. His life had been a series of one misfortune after another: his mother left, his father died, his school teachers thought he was a good-for-nothing, and now, he had a disease that stemmed from his unrequited love that was out in space, also sick of some illness that Keith wasn’t privy to. The universe was hellbent on making him miserable or something.

And now, it was Shiro’s turn for Keith to empathise.

Inches from signing his name  as witness on the document that declared Keith’s refusal to go through the surgery unless otherwise mentioned. Iverson stared at him as if he was insane. And maybe he was.

“Kogane, you realise that this is your life on the line. It’s not a game.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you will die unless you get it medically treated or get your unrequited love to fall for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know if you’re plain stupid or hard of hearing right now.”

He removed himself from the datapad to look at Keith. There was something intimidating in his unimpressed eyes that made Keith turn his gaze down to his desk for a second. But there was also a hint of pity as he sighed. “It’s Shirogane, isn’t it?”

Keith’s eyes widened slightly before he caught himself again. “With all due respect, sir, it’s something I would rather not discuss with you.”

“Absolute idiots, the lot of you.” Iverson huffed amusedly and knowingly. “You really got yourself into some pickle here, cadet.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s not something you can control.” Iverson shook his head and handed the datapad back to Keith. “But I won’t sign this. I won’t sign your death warrant, cadet.”

Keith took the datapad back in his hand, saluting and prepared to leave before he was stopped again.

“Kogane, don’t fuck your life over for this. You still have a lot to give, son.”

The endearment was unusual for Keith, most of all from Iverson, who was giving him that worried look that he had always given him whenever Keith got himself into trouble. He thought he might have gotten used to it by now, but he hasn’t, and it caught him off guard.

“Yes, sir.” He nodded and left the office.

Iverson was wrong about one thing.

He was right about Keith being an absolute moron, but he was wrong about Keith having much to give to anyone. Everyone who he had ever asked for help from - his dad’s friends, his teachers and classmates - became disappointments that only tire him. He didn’t owe the world anything when all it had ever done for him was beat him til all he could feel was the hollowness of solitude.

He didn’t owe anyone but Shiro, because Shiro wasn’t just _anyone_. He was the man who saw Keith taking his car for a joy ride that very first day they met to prove hat he was everything of a ‘disciplinary case’ as his teacher had called him. Yet he gave Keith a second chance. Shiro, who was observant, and understood Keith’s frustrations and never gave up on him.

And Keith understood why Shiro did what he did.

Some things were deep rooted desires in your heart, and living without such motivation in life made it stale and meaningless. For Keith, it were the memories he had with this kind man that gave him more opportunities than he deserved - the years of happiness that he had experienced at the Garrison. Forgetting and going back to life before where he was in the constant search to find that happiness again, seemed closer to death.

Perhaps if Shiro was there, he would echo Iverson’s words into Keith’s ear, and Keith might have listened to him. But Shiro wasn’t there, and Keith only had his own thoughts to listen to.

 

&&&

 

Sooner than he expected, Keith was called back into Iverson’s office, and the man seemed to have aged exponentially within the span of seven months. He had expected his quarterly report, but Iverson was brooding as he walked in, and Keith knew he couldn’t have done _that badly_ to make Iverson _that_ upset.

“I owe it to Shiro to tell you this before you learn about it from the media,” he said solemnly.

“Sir?”

The man stared blankly at Keith, as if he hasn’t entirely processed what he needed to say. “The Kerberos crew had crashed landed before they reached their destination. No one survived.”

Keith held his breath. “That’s a lie.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sir, you can’t possibly tell me that the Kerberos crew had died in an accident caused by the pilot.”

Iverson’s intense gaze remained. “That is the truth.”

“Sir, you and I both know that Shiro is the best pilot that had ever come out of this place.”

“And people make mistakes.”

“You’re telling me that Takashi Shirogane, with two missions under his record before he was even twenty-five, had crashed the spaceship. That is absolute bullshit!” Keith’s hands were bracing on the desk now, and he towered over Iverson still impassive and sitting in his chair.

“Believe what you want to, Kogane.” He stacked a piece of paper onto the pile next to him, and it was strange, because Iverson almost never touches the paper on his desk. He had always prefered digital copies on his datapad.

“It doesn’t change the fact that they’re all gone, now. People don’t survive in outer space without a spaceship.” There was finality to his tone, and he looked tired, and Keith could sympathise if he weren’t so caught in disbelief.

“Sir, please, I need the truth.” He pleaded. It couldn’t be real. He couldn’t take Iverson’s words for what it was and he didn’t dare to. Believing in those words was like toppling his life from the very foundations. He couldn’t, _he couldn’t._

The commander sighed heavily, his face downcasted. “It’s the only truth I’m allowed to give you.”

There was something that he was holding back, and there was enough proof in his silence to tell Keith that it wasn’t Shiro’s fault. It wasn’t a pilot error, and they might have already made it there before something had gone awry.

It wasn’t Shiro’s fault. But of course the media didn’t know that. And it didn’t change the fact that the crew was most likely dead.

The news hit the Garrison the next day, and there was a buzzing on every nook and cranny of the facility as Keith got out of class. And there were pitying stares at him, because everyone knew of the upstart rebel that caught the Garrison’s star and their relationship. But the pity resembled nothing like the guilty sympathy that Iverson gave him. These were cold, curious, and at times rude. Keith couldn’t stand it. And Keith ran, again, to get away from it all.

He took a hoverbike to the desert and took the dive off the cliff with ease, despite his eyes burning the entire time. And he rounded around the rocks, stopping on that one cliff where they’ve spent so many different days watching the sunset.

The sun began to set in the horizon again, painting the sky in a gradient of orange and yellow whilst the shadows in the landscape began to peak, evoking a haunting beauty through the contrast in the colours. And Keith cried, pouring his anguish and pain and longing into every gasp and tears that the ground soaked up in earnest. He cried, choking in between breaths as he coughed stems, leaves, petals and blood from his lungs.

When the darkness settled, the colours disappeared from the sky. But on the ground beside Keith lay scattered red rose petals, thorned green stems and leaves, and brown dried up splatters of blood. And in his hand: a whole rose, bright red painted in crimson blood.

 

&&&

 

“Come on, let’s go.” Adam tapped him on the shoulder.

Keith looked at him confusedly, because he hadn’t registered the entirety of Adam’s words. It seemed people had a knack for surprising him with words, these days. Most startling was when James Griffin, of all people, discreetly and thoughtfully told him about the thorns that had started to protrude on his neck.

“Come on, we need to leave now before the tailor closes,” he beckoned again.

The funeral was scheduled to be in two weeks, and Keith had to get a suit since the last one he ever wore fitted only his ten years old self. Whilst he insisted to get a premade one from the nearest shopping mall, Adam immediately forbid him.

“You realise I can’t afford getting a tailored suit,” Keith sighed. They’ve already discussed this, but Adam just won’t let him be for some reason.

“Who says you’re paying it?”

“ _Seriously_ , don’t…”

It felt like Adam was trying to step into a role that Shiro had once been for Keith - the caring figure that really didn’t have any business to help him but they did out of the goodness in their hearts. Or maybe he just wanted Keith to dress his best at the funeral of his ex-lover. Keith didn’t know how to feel about it.

Adam was giving him that unimpressed stare again. “This isn’t debatable. It’s an order, cadet.”

So Keith wrapped his neck well with bandages and pulled over his only turtleneck. That reminded him. He needed to get more of these shirts.

He had a few strange stares as he walked out behind Adam - he would admit, it was a weird to see them together both dressed down and heading for the town thirty minutes away. And someone from one of his classes even waved at him.

It seemed that a lot of people from his cohort had realised his flower coughing, and they were all kind enough to feign ignorance at Keith’s conditions where it wasn’t life threatening.

It was strange, to say the least, to see those around him gather and support him. But then this had also happened when his father died. Where there were few months of immense support and sympathy that tapered off as Keith headed into middle school and high school.

And now, post-high school and once burned, Keith quelled his expectations for the kindness to continue after the funeral was done.

“I’ll pay you back,” he promised Adam as the tailor pulled his tape measures around him.

Adam glanced up from the rows of ties he was looking at and waved him off. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You don’t have to do this for me, just because Shiro would.”

“I’m doing this for you because you need a suit.” Adam merely said and draped a black tie around his neck. “And Shiro wouldn’t do this, because if Shiro was here, then you wouldn’t need it in the first place.”

And there was a bitterness in his voice, but behind it were the grief that cut deep. They were both still reeling from the painful whip that was the Kerberos crew’s death, and they were both reeling from the death of their loved ones.

Keith pulled him into a hug, one they both needed. “Thank you, Adam.”

“It’s the least I could do,” he replied, patting Keith firmly on the back.

 

&&&

 

The funeral was a big affair at the Garrison.

Keith dressed well in the tailored suit, collared up and wrapped with the black tie that finished the ensemble. His neck was bandaged tightly in crisp, clean bandages. And he brought a bouquet of chrysanthemums, hydrangea and roses, all in ivory white.

Adam followed him towards the caskets, done up in his service dress suit. And like the caskets, Keith felt empty. His tears were nearly but not quite brimming his eyes enough to fall. He hardly registered his own footsteps nor Adam’s hand on his shoulders. And he only managed to realise it was his cue to set the flowers when he felt that same hand squeezing his shoulder.

As he turned back to walk down the steps, he saw Adam’s distant gaze, and his mouth pressed into a thin line as if staring into the visualised spirit of Takashi Shirogane right there on the steps.

Suddenly, Keith couldn’t breath.

He was wheezing, and his lungs were burning as he tried suck breath inwards, pulling the thorns down and scratching against his insides. He needed to cough it out. He needed to get off the steps quickly. Uncontrollably, his body began to force the obstruction upwards as he coughed. Keith tried to cover his mouth - to at least silence himself somewhat - and turned his face away from the people coming up behind him. But it only served to irritate his throat more.

“Keith, you alright?” He felt a hand on his back and he shook his head as best as he could whilst choking.

He heard Adam encouraging him, and rub a hand on his back. And he could taste the blood in his mouth - at least that meant something was moving up.

There was a hand trying to pull him down the steps, and he tried to follow before an intense and painful cough had him spewing three petals and a leaf into his fingers with a small puddle of blood slowly seeping through his hands and onto the fresh white flowers below.

He decided that red wasn’t the most appropriate colour at a funeral.

Sitting in the medical centre, he had a vague recollection of the event and relied on Adam to recount most of it. And he wished he hadn’t asked about how much of a scene he had caused.

“Sorry for ruining the suit,” he apologised. His white dress shirt had splodges of blood here and there, but the dress pants and blazer definitely had an entire bloody hand print on there somewhere.

“Don’t apologise. It’s your suit. And you apologise too much, Keith.” Adam smiled at him reassuringly.

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m hacking out flower petals at a funeral.”

“It’s because of Shiro, isn’t it?” The way he said it made Keith stiffen - too knowledgeable and entirely unsurprised. Keith didn’t reply.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had a feeling it was him for a long time now,” Adam said. “Though I only wish things hadn’t come down with all three of us suffering.”

He squeezed Keith’s shoulder. “You deserve better.” And he left the room, leaving Keith to ponder over the bloody rose petals in his blazer’s pocket.

 

&&&

 

Keith had it coming since the day Iverson called him to his office to announce Shiro’s death. He had received disciplinary warnings from the instructors for his tardiness and general lack of participation in classes. It was only a matter of time before he couldn’t even bring himself to continue this path. His health wasn’t the biggest problem - he had medication that made him slightly drowsy but not useless - but his motivation was.

It also didn’t help that Iverson practically lost his head when Keith told him that he wasn’t going to get the surgery, despite Shiro’s assumed death.

Regardless, he went out in a blazing fire when he left the Garrison, beating every one of Shiro’s simulation scores.

“Shiro would be proud.” Adam laughed at his eccentricities because _of course_ Keith would go all lengths to fuck with Shiro’s ego even posthumously. And then Keith stacked the boxes containing years of accumulated things at the corner of the shack, promising to get through them tomorrow.

Exactly a year after the funeral, between a bottle of spirits and the a lot of smoke, Keith tainted the polaroid of them with his red fingers and tears. Cigarettes were a funny thing, he found. They were a surefire way to ruin him in the long run, but they also reduced the growth in his lungs now. Keith wasn’t exactly picky with his path towards the end, anymore.

Even on a night as sombre as this, the sky remained clear and the stars continued to shine brightly against the darkness around it. Stars have always been Shiro’s thing. 

Keith wondered if flowers in his lungs could be the embodiment of Shiro’s spirit calling for him from the other side. It was easier to think of it in this way than to remember it as his cowardice. At least then, Shiro would still be somewhere out there instead of dead in the vastness of space.

“Where are you, Shiro?” he asked the night sky, as if it would respond to him.

And in his gut there was a call a yearn to head into some parts of the desert but Keith couldn’t understand why. It was strong, and it felt invigorating. But in that moment, he didn’t want it. He took another drag and put it at the back of his mind for a later day.

The later days caught him in a new obsession with a cave and ancient carvings on the wall. All of which told a story of a godly lion with unlimited powers, destined to save the world from an unknown threat.

One night, something crashed in the desert. Keith grabbed his bandanna, the knife and pulled on his jacket. He had a feeling that he needed to go, he needed to get to the crash, _just because_.

A tent had already been set when he arrived, and he snuck around, scoping the landscape and set up of the camp. And then he heard it: a cry, a shout that was vaguely familiar, in one of the lit up tents.

“You have to listen to me!”

And there it was again, that confusing draw gravitation pulling at him, stemming from more than just deadly curiosity.

Keith ran back to his bike and planted explosives in the distant before racing back around the opposing side of the camp. The bombs went off in order with loud noises followed by yelling and screaming of the staff, all running towards the distraction.

He smirked behind his bandanna and kept low as he rounded the tent. He punched someone in the face, just as he was at the entrance. And _damn that hurt_ , he thought as he shook his hand slightly. He didn’t remember it being that bad when he punched Griffin in the face.

Another person in a hazmat suit was quickly approaching him to protect whatever’s on the table.  He delivered a hard kick into their middle, and few more punches, effectively knocking out the other two.

And on the table was Shiro.

Keith found it hard to breath - he needed to get them out of there fast before Keith started to burn his throat raw by coughing again.

Later, sitting on at the bedside where Shiro was still unconscious, and three other Garrison cadets scattered around on couch that Keith realised the unfathomable had just happened.

Shiro fell from the sky, as if some celestial being had answered Keith’s question. But Shiro was different. He had changed so much over the year, almost an entirely different person. His right arm was gone, replaced with a prosthetic that looked unlike anything on this planet. The hair on his forehead had turned white permanently. Keith ran a hand over his eyebrows to smooth the wrinkles forming there. Shiro looked worn, as if he had aged more than a decade despite having only been gone for two years.

“Take a break, Keith.” Pidge - as Keith had come to learn her _(his?_ ) name - suggested. “I’ll call you when he wakes up.”

He was going to deny the offer, until his throat was ticking again. Keith excused himself from the shack to dislodge another leaf. He breathed out a curse, and washed his hands. But at least the very illness he so dreaded was telling him the very real fact that Shiro was back, and Shiro was alive, and this wasn’t another one of his dreams.

Keith had too many dreams in which he had woken up, miraculously cured or had never been so cursed in the first place. In his dreams, Keith lived a blissfully normal life without the flower hacking, and sometimes, he was with Shiro.

And he was with Shiro now, still ridden with flowers growing in his damned lungs, but he was happier than he had ever been for a while, because at least this was real. _Keith could have his life back._

“Keith?” He turned around, and there was Shiro standing and waiting in his father’s old clothes that he had left out. And Keith ran to him, arms open.

It had been almost two years since he had been under the same sky as Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit fillery, i think. Also literally everything hits me when i see fanart. i found [this](https://meapistrash.tumblr.com/post/183794835364/erionn-pilot-error) by [@erion](https://twitter.com/Erian_art). sooooo headcanon that Adam did his best to take care of Keith after Shiro died.
> 
> And let's pretend that having thorns piercing thru your trachea and your skin does not affect your breathing (even if normal human beings would usually die after accidentally getting grain of rice stuck down our windpipe) because everything is fictional anyways.
> 
> Edit: Also i finally emerge from the real life and confusedswede read my story b4 they found my tag on tumblr and THANK YOU!!?!?!?!? ASDKFAKJL NO WORDS


	3. Searching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Someone once asked me what I was looking for._   
>  _Is there someone I’m looking for in this deserted field._   
>  _Have you ever seen it?_   
>  _A smile that brightens the whole world?_   
>  _I have seen it._
> 
> [How Can I Forget You? - Hwang Chi Yeul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v12SYkvBMYE)

Keith had underestimated how hard this Voltron thing was whilst trying to keep his coughing at bay, especially when he had to be around Shiro so often. And Keith’s been coughing so much that he could barely talk some days.

The only good thing that came out of it was the fact that he had grown used to food goo because it was the only thing that would go down his throat smoothly.

“You know, you should tell him.” Pidge advised, still typing away at her screen a distance from him on the sunken couch.

Somehow, the only ones who knew that Keith was struggling horribly were Lance and Pidge. He wasn't surprised by Lance, but he was by Pidge and her awfully too observant nature.

“Tell who what?”

“Shiro.” She glanced up at him. “About the roses.”

And he knew that they knew because they gave him worrying looks whenever he simply cleared his throat as if anticipating the worse.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah, I know how Hanahaki works.” She rolled her eyes, already exasperated at his antiques. “And it would be easier for you to confess and perhaps let him grow to love you back.”

Keith raised his eyebrows. “Is that even guaranteed?”

“Well, I have seen it work for a family friend.” Pidge hummed slightly, cocking her head to one side. “Point is though, that you need to let him know that you are sick. Maybe if you want to test his sincerity, then don’t tell him that you love him or something. But at least.. I don’t know? Do something about it other than wait around whilst you hack out more and more petals every other day?”

“You make it sound like I haven’t been trying or something.” He glared. He was taking advice from an 18 year old nerd with no experience and he couldn’t believe himself. The sad thing is, he couldn’t tell her that she might be naive because they were exactly the same when it comes to relationships: not much friends, and no official romance. What a dynamic duo, they made.

“I’m not saying that you haven’t. I’m just saying… things could be easier for you, Keith. You already have a long history together.”

“Yeah, a history of being _friends_.”

“Friends become lovers.” She shrugged. “It happens.”

“They do, but… it’s been two years, Pidge. We’ve both changed.” _I can’t read him as well_ , he didn’t say. And he _had_ considered telling Shiro at some point, but that would have to be some time in the future where he had enough nerves, perhaps desperate, and perhaps when he was sure that Shiro held some sort of attraction to him, at least.

They have all changed in some ways. But Keith was still a coward when it comes to Shiro.

“You’re still the same pining idiot who wears his heart on his sleeves for him though.”

Keith’s ears went red. “What?”

Pidge laughed and dropped her datapad. “Anyone who ever paid just a minute of attention to you two talking to each other could tell. I’m surprised Shiro hasn’t picked up on it yet!”

“Maybe he has but just hasn’t said anything about it.” He said .

“Is it that hard to speak with him now?”

“I… I don’t know. It feels the same as before.”

“Isn’t that good?”

Keith huffed sardonically. “No, it isn’t.” It really wasn’t, because Shiro before Kerberos hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him that he was sick, and Keith had to find out through hints left by those that did know. And as far he remembered, Shiro had never been interested in Keith for anything but a platonic relationship. “There were things he would keep from me, because… I guess I’m just a little brother to him?”

“Ouch, dude.” Pidge scrunched her nose sympathetically. “Bro-zone is the worse.”

He chuckled sadly. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“If it makes you feel any better, though, I think he’s actually paying attention to you.”

“Yeah, we work together.” He deadpanned.

“No, as in romantically. He’s sometimes in this kind of trance when he sees you train? Not sure if you had noticed.”

“Really?” Keith snorted, despite feeling hope rising in him. “Did he also drool at my socks?”

“Believe me, you blind fuck!” She swatted his arm painfully, making him hiss in surprise.

“Language, Jesus! Also, no bullying the sick!”

A beeping on Pidge’s datapad signaled an incoming call, and Hunk’s face popped up onto the screen. “Hey, Pidge? We might need your help a bit to reconfigure the cloaking on the lions.”

“Hadn’t I already sent the sequences to you?”

“Yeah,” Hunk rubbed the back of his neck slightly, embarrassed. “I might have accidentally scrambled it?”

“Fine. On my way.” Pidge groaned, narrowing her eyes at the screen as Keith held back his cackle.

“Duty calls,” she said almost remorsefully and stood up, stretching her legs.

“Aren’t we all just hopeless without you.” Keith said, because he did truly appreciate her presence that was saner than most.

“Oh, I _know_ .” She stressed and chuckled. Then, her gaze turned soft - almost fearful - and her words were unsure. “Hey, if it comes to the worst possible case, you’ll go through the surgery, _right_?”

There was something particularly fragile in her voice that made Keith fear honesty to be to heavy for her to bear- being so caring wasn’t something he often associated with her. And he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the path that he had chosen ages ago. Perhaps she had grown onto him much more than he had realised.

“Of course.”

Pidge nodded her head before the door slid open, and she was smiling and uncaring again as as if Keith’s words had rung true.

 

&&&

 

What he had imagined when he thought of telling Shiro about the roses did not coincide with what actually happened. Keith was beginning to see that things he planned never seem to work out the way he wanted when it come to his personal life, and it was really getting annoying.

Lying back against a rock in the middle of some backwater planet, surrounded by more rocks and exploding geysers in the ground with Shiro in pain and close to unconsciousness next to him was definitely not on his schedule.

“Thanks for saving me,” Shiro spoke quietly and exhaustedly. He hadn’t fared well with the injury that was glowing an ominous purple in his side, combined with being attacked by incredibly aggressive panther-like creatures. To be honest, who would?

“You would have done the same for me.” Keith busied himself with fixing the flame, eyes focusing on the flickering heat in front of them. He cleared his throat slightly - it was getting a bit hard to breath.

“How’s your wound?”

“My wound is great. It’s getting bigger all the time.” Keith winced slightly and snapped his head to look at Shiro, who couldn’t even muster a smile to make his sarcasm a little more believable. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

There were sweat beading his hairline and trailing his neck. Keith wiped his hand off before placing it onto Shiro’s forehead to feel a threatening warmth. Shiro was shivering even underneath the temperature calibrated bodysuit and armor. Keith should have gotten that towel hanging somewhere in the Red Lion, too.

“Hang in there. When Allura and Coran find us, they’ll fix you right up.”

“Keith, if I don’t make it out of here...” Keith already dreaded what would come after that. “.... I want you to lead Voltron.”

It was as if Shiro was reading some writing on the walls that Keith couldn’t see. Either ways, he wasn’t going to accept it. Keith believed that he was dead, once, and he couldn’t do it again - he couldn’t go to Shiro’s funeral twice.

“Stop talking like that, you’re gonna make it.” He reaffirmed, his voice breathless at the end when he started to feel something starting to trap in his windpipe.

“I’m messed up, Keith.” Shiro’s looked at him pleadingly. “And I messed up everything around me too.”

“No, you didn’t. You just had a few bad days. Doesn’t make you any less of the great person you are.” Keith wanted to say a million more things, to prove Shiro wrong in every way, but he was barely holding onto his breathing. Talking to Shiro was dangerous, not because his words could cut and burn Keith to the ground, but because Keith was only moments away from choking every time the conversation lasted longer than half an hour.

“I can’t believe you still think that.” Shiro sighed dejectedly, but at least he finally smiled. “But I guess, if there was one thing I didn’t mess up, it was choosing to trust you.”

“What?” Keith inhaled slowly.

“You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Keith. I don’t.... I don’t know what I would do without you.”

He was dreaming, he had to be. This sounded too much like a confession and a goodbye at the same time. He whispered, “What do you mean by that?”

Shiro reached out to gently squeeze his shoulder, prepared to say something until Keith jerked away, violently coughing.

“Keith?” He heard Shiro’s concerning question, but he could only lean away, and held up a hand for Shiro to leave him be. Petals, followed by stems and leaves escaped his mouth. And with a final shuddering push of air, a rose finally landed on his hand, fresh and red just as the first one.

He could hear Shiro gasp as he spit the remaining blood from his mouth and sat back, pulling the fresh blessed breaths into his lungs again. This wasn’t how he had planned to tell Shiro about _it_ , but alas, when was the universe ever on his side.

“When did _this_ start?” Shiro seemed more distraught at Keith’s coughing than even his own possible death, which was a touching but alarming thought.

“The flower coughing? Or my unrequited pining?” Keith rasped and licked his teeth. He could still taste the metal of the blood - his teeth must be stained red.

“The flowers.”

He sucked in a deep breath and looked to the sky so he could avoid Shiro’s penetrating stare that would undoubtedly unravel all of Keith’s secrets. “Some time after you left.”

“God, Keith…I’m so sorry…”

“For what? There’s nothing you could have done.” Keith smiled wryly and his hand pulled at his throat that was still a bit raw.

Shiro returned with a pained smile and a slight grunt as his body shifted, agitating his wound. “Who’s your unrequited love, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Keith tilted his head to the sky. “Someone who loved the stars more than anything. So much that he would risk the world for it.”

There was a moment silence where Shiro spent staring at him, and Keith couldn’t tell if the look in his eyes were wistful or sorry. He wondered if he had been too forward, Shiro had figured that the roses were for him. And Keith looked for some sort of reaction, but there were none - just a shared, slightly uncomfortable silence.

“You were saying something? Before this?” Keith finally asked.

Shiro seemed to have lost his thoughts by then, and scrambled to find words to reply. “Oh! I was… I was going to say that I’m really glad that you’re here with me. I couldn’t ask for a better brother in arms than you.”

Keith tried to uphold his smile, despite the words digging a giant hole of despair inside his heart because Keith was right, and Pidge was wrong. “Me too.”

“May I?” Shiro pointed carefully to the rose that Keith had forgotten was still nestled in his hand. He handed it over, and Shiro lifted it from his hand as if it were fine china, cradling it in the palm of his hand and turning it over to observe the blood-caked petals. “Was it someone in the Garrison?”

Keith nodded.

“And did you ever tell that… special someone of yours... about this?”

“There was never a suitable time.”

“So he still doesn’t know.”

“No, he does. I’m sure he would have figured it out by now after I hacked a rose into his face.” Keith huffed.

Shiro breathed slowly, and pulled the rose into his arms. “And what did he say?”

There was no need for Keith to even contemplate about whether he should recite Shiro’s words or not. He didn’t want to poke at this fresh wound that was threatening to explode as unforgivable and unexplainable words.

So he remained quiet, and Shiro caught on. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Keith shrugged as if it were no big deal.

When Pidge landed and came to their rescue, Shiro handed the rose back to him, and Keith threw it into the flames. He could feel the questioning dark eyes boring into his back, but he gave no explanation, and continued onward.

 

&&&

 

A knock on Keith’s door had him so shocked that he fell off his bed, because no one _ever_ needed to come to his room. Yet, there was Shiro behind his door, healed, rested, and laughing as he stepped into Keith’s room because he heard Keith’s clumsiness from outside.

It felt like eternity since they have had a slow day that they all desperately needed after everyone but Pidge had as much fun being lost across the universe. It felt overdue that they finally had a break and Keith spent a lot of his free time that day catching up on sleep and ignoring the outside world that was waiting to kill him.

Hence, exhibit A: Takashi Shirogane knocking on his door and making Keith fall out of his bed - a gentle reminder that Shiro’s inelegant choking from holding back his laugh is just as dangerous as a Galra sentry. Even more so because Galran sentries don’t ask about your day and your health that was deteriorating with every minute that you see this brilliant smile.

They talked, sitting beside one another on the floor beside the bed with their shoulders touching. And it was nice to just talk to Shiro, to discover and learn things about each other like they used to out in the desert. And Shiro asked _so many_ questions concerning his health that was beginning to become harder and harder to answer with the tingling in his throat becoming more prominent.

At one point as they delved more and more into Keith’s choices and where he went wrong. “Why did you never confess before the symptoms showed?” Shiro asked. He hadn’t exactly said that Keith fucked up - he was too nice to ever actually say that it was a thought in his head all the same.

Keith blew his hair away from his face. “Because back then, he was in love with someone else. And… well, that would have been extremely awkward.”

Shiro could only look sorry for him, and he was used to it, by now. “If we could get you back to Earth, now, would he accept you?”

“No. I know for sure. He won’t.”

“Why not? He must be a real idiot to let someone like you go.” Shiro nudged his arm with his, and Keith smiled a little at the contact.

“He only ever saw me as a close friend, and nothing more. He told me that.” And it hurted a little to repeat the words to himself aloud. Before, he relished in the real world because Shiro was there, but now, it only started to feel more and more like a burden that grew heavier with the days. At least in his dreams, he still had hope.

“I wish I could help you.”

“You _are_ , Shiro. You are.” Keith assured him. Things were confusing: he was grateful for Shiro’s presence and care, but it was despairing to know that he was getting closer and closer to the end yet no closer to Shiro than he would have expected. He wanted to always have this little of a distance between them, but he wanted to stop being reminded of things he couldn’t have.

Keith had decided to stop thinking about it altogether.

“I want to help you _more_ , that is.” Shiro added. “I could punch some sense into your unrequited love, for you.”

Keith laughed. “Force your undying love for me into him, would you?”

“With my glowing robot arm, gladly!”

His lungs decided to send up another few stems at that point, and Keith ran to the bathroom to heave over the bowl painfully. And Shiro rubbed at his back soothingly whilst he caught his breath. An unknowing looker could almost mistake them for pair of cadets after a night out where one of them decided that the Gin was far too tasty for just a few shots. When he told Shiro that, he laughed.

Keith glared disgustingly down at his shirt and neck where there were smears of dark red that made it look like a horribly unimaginative abstract painting.

He rummaged through the closet for a new shirt and some clean bandages and headed back to the bathroom, taking off his older ones in the process. And then he remembered that Shiro was still there in the room, and he was gawking a bit at Keith’s half-naked self. Shiro cleared his throat a bit when he realised, and Keith smirked.

Then the bandages came off, and he could see Shiro staring at his neck, deep in a thought that he couldn’t even begin to guess. And Shiro’s human hand hovered, asking, “May I?”

Keith nodded and tried not to flinch as he felt the fingers brushing tentatively over the column of his throat. They trailed from his chin, downwards, zig-zagging around the thorns and over the number of scars that had only multiplied over the years. Keith held his breath when when it stopped, right in between his collarbones, right where a long scar ran horizontally.

“It’s from a surgery.” He answered before the question could be asked. Shiro looked at him confusedly.

“People who have plants with thorns like mine would have to occasionally get other surgeries to remove the thorns, or they’re start to overcrowd.”

Shiro hummed in understanding and ran his finger up over a thorn that was protruding quite prominently on Keith’s neck. He murmured, “Does it hurt?”

“Not always.” Then the fingers went over the thorn and Shiro winced, quickly pulling his hand back.

“Careful, they’re sharp.” Keith pulled himself away, and turned to find the straight razor blade that served his neck more than his non-existing facial hair. Slowly, and painstakingly, he stared at the mirror whilst he began to trim the thorns. And Shiro was still standing behind him, leaning against the doorframe and watching him intently with a slight tilt of his head. Shiro’s crossed arms, the slight curl in his lips, his intense stare - it was a predatory stance, and Keith felt like a deer in the headlight.

His hand slipped abruptly, and the blade cut into his skin, pulling another line of blood that was trickling down his throat.

“Careful, it’s sharp.” Shiro echoed the his owns words back at him with a grin.

“Figured.” He washed his neck and the blade. Keith was about to try again before he met Shiro’s eyes in the mirror, still fixated on him. Keith turned around and held the blade out.

“Do you want to try?”

Keith sat on the marble counter near the sink, and Shiro went slow. His eyes never once turned away from the task at hand, and he hands applied the slightest pressure around Keith’s neck. The cuts were firm and decisive, pulling slightly against Keith’s taunt skin - the places where his palm rested tingled slightly afterwards. He could so easily choke Keith with a grasp, and Keith could do absolutely nothing with the blade against his neck.

Shiro was so close where he was practically pressing Keith against the mirror, and Keith could Shiro’s breath against the skin of his neck. There was an intimacy that reached beyond the physical distances between them that he wondered if Shiro could sense. He wondered if Shiro had noticed the reveal of Keith’s greatest insecurity at all, and how he had so easily accepted it without judgments.

Keith reveled in it as he smiled in the feeling of the clean, soft bandages wrapped around his neck where Shiro’s fingers brushed just before, as if trapping his essence into Keith’s skin.

When Shiro finally stood straight, their faces were mere centimetres apart. And it was more than confusing, in retrospect, for someone that had likened Keith to a brother to be acting as if he was about to kiss him right then and there.

“Do you know what red roses mean?” He said softly, close to a whisper. Shiro patiently waited for him to continue.

“Devotion,” he said.

Shiro’s eyes softened for a second before they suddenly turned downwards, and he began to retreat from Keith’s space. Keith almost reached out to pull him in again, consequences be damned, but Shiro was skittish and moved quickly to clean the blade. He left it next to the sink before he was stepping back and heading out of the room.

“Thanks, Shiro.”

Shiro stopped for just a moment at the door frame, and without looking back before disappearing behind the door, he said, “You’re welcome, Keith.”

And Keith wondered what all of this meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (please dont go googling flower language because i bet you that red roses just mean "romance and passionate love" or something. i made up the meaning to this one since personally for me, it's how i perceived Keith's love for Shiro.)
> 
> i was telling myself to pace the updates but then i realise that i really need to move onto the next project and the more i reread the draft every time i go back to the document, the more i will try to edit it and fuck it up. so here's to my lack of self-control for the next chapter being updated on the same day!
> 
> Edit: ALso did i mention that i have no beta and i keep finding mistakes every time i reread?


	4. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the idiots finally realise it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You can say I’m wrong, you can turn your back against me_   
>  _But I’m here to stay._   
>  _Like the sea should keep kissing the shoreline,_   
>  _No matter how many times he pushes her away._
> 
> [Everything I Need - Skylar Grey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cC8vqKx-GI)

_“You know exactly who you are: a Paladin of Voltron. We’re all the family you need.”_

_“Shiro, you’re… I love you, but I have to do this.”_

_“Just give up the knife, Keith! You’re only thinking of yourself, as usual.”_

_“I’ve made my choice.”_

_“Then you’ve chosen to be alone.”_

 

&&&

 

When Keith woke up, it was to the sound of explosions and rubble falling all around him, and nothing was making sense. The last thing he remembered was the longing on his father’s face as he said goodbye, followed by a sorrowful ache that was still ripping through him.

But in front of him now was Shiro, running towards him in a panic.

Another explosion had the grounds shaking. Keith remembered where he was, and that his entire body was in pain, flaring across every muscle he owned. The Blade of Marmora were as ruthless as they were efficient. He really should have been smarter.

“Keith, are you okay?” Shiro pulled him to his feet and slung Keith’s arm over his shoulder. He groaned slightly as his vision spun.

“Stop what you’re doing!”

Drowsily, Keith tilted his face up to find masked figures all ready to charge at him. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Call off your beast!” Kolivan demanded.

Beside him, Shiro pulled his arm tighter and wrapped the other arm on his shoulder. Everything was still spinning a bit, and Keith tried to blink away the spots in his eyes.

Shiro growled, “Move out of the way, we’re leaving!”

“You’re not leaving with that blade. It does not belong to you. You failed to awaken it!”

Keith was _‘this’_ close to losing it with Kolivan and his cryptic words. “What does that even mean?!”

“Give up the blade!” Antok unsheathed his blade and charged at them, and abruptly, Keith was thrown back as Shiro raised his weaponised hand up to block a blow meant for their necks.

 _Shit._ This wasn’t what neither of them expected when the came here to negotiate. The fight will definitely come down to them losing with this number of Galra against them. Shiro was gritting his teeth against the impact on his forearm against the giant mass towering over him.

Keith stood frozen - he didn’t want this. This wasn’t worth it. Nothing was worth Shiro’s pain. They needed to get out of there. _God_ , he was so tired.

“Wait!” He yelled, and stood straight with all the strength he could muster, holding the knife open in front of him. “Just take the knife.”

All eyes trained on him, and Shiro’s surprise seemed to be stuck in his throat. Keith kept his hand steady. “It doesn’t matter where I come from. I know who I am. We all need to work together to defeat Zarkon. And if that means I give up this knife, fine. Take it.”

Suddenly, the blade in his hand glowed a blinding violet, and morphed into a long sword of luxite.

“You’ve awoken the blade.” Kolivan said. “The only way this is possible is if Galra blood runs through your veins.”

But that was the least of Keith’s concern right now. It felt like barely anything was coming in, or out of his lungs despite his best efforts. And he tried to force out anything that could be stuck in his windpipe, but what came out was only blood.

 _Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale_. Keith repeated in his mind.

He was feeling dizzy again, and Shiro managed to just catch him as he fell to his knees. “Keith! Come on, stay with me buddy.”

A low rumble echoed in the building, but Keith could barely tell where it had come from. He needed a nap. He just wanted to nod off, but Shiro was shaking him gently. Keith didn’t remember managing to sit on the ground, but then he was, and Shiro was in front of him, holding his shoulders.

“Keith. I know you’re tired, but we need you to stop Red.” He felt hands cupping his face and the back of his neck, and a low, hushed voice in his ears.  “Hey, Keith. Please. We need you to pilot the Red Lion. You have to stay awake. Can you do that for me?”

Shiro sounded so afraid. Keith didn’t know of what, but he could nod numbly despite everything in his body denying him, and breathlessly said, “Yes, sir.”

“Good man.” Shiro patted him on the back and hauled him back to his feet.

How he managed to pilot Red out of the hidden base and into the hangar remains hidden in some part of his consciousness that he didn’t remember. What he did remember was the feeling of his lungs burning as he held back against his instincts to jerk to one side to spill everything in his throat. It was as if he was on autopilot with the only thing that was able to move him was sheer professionalism and will.

Every breath shook his body. He was still repeating the mantra in his head, but they only helped to keep him awake as he walked out of the lion. He could hear himself wheezing now. He couldn’t breath. He needed to get whatever it is in his lungs out. _He needed to get help_.

“I’m proud of you, Keith.” He head Shiro say. And Keith tried to say something, but he could barely even see where Shiro was standing. He felt the shuddering coughs finally leave him, but he _still couldn’t breath._

Someone was calling his name, and entire side of his body hurted as if he had slammed into a wall, but he couldn’t register himself doing anything before his eyes closed and pulled him from the world.

 

&&&

 

When Keith came to it again, he felt air being periodically blow into his nose and something warm in the area between his lips and nose. He lifted his hand, and found a tube running across his face.

“Keith! You’re awake!” The high pitched voice registered to be Pidge. She was at his side in seconds.

 _What happened to me?_ He tried to ask, but it started more like a croak that turned into a series of coughs because of how uncomfortable it felt to just speak. He turned his face over to splutter it out.

Pidge quickly placed a bowl right next to his mouth where a line of spit and blood was trickling out. “Don’t speak, Keith. We had to put you into an emergency surgery to get that flower out of your trachea.”

He nodded and fell back heavily onto the pillow, looking around. He gestured around the room with his hands, hoping Pidge would understand his question.

“Hang on.” She adjusted the bed and gave him a datapad to communicate when he was somewhat sitting upright.

 _“Where am I?”_ he typed.

“One of the rooms in the medical wing. We moved you in here after you were in the healing pod for a day.”

_“A day? How long was I out for?”_

“It’s been…” Pidge looked to the ceiling, thinking. “...three days, if you counted the time in surgery as well.”

 _“What happened to me?”_ He asked, and Pidge looked hesitant to tell him. He tapped on the datapad again, reaffirming his question, and she sighed.

“It’s bad, Keith.” She softly said, and Keith hadn’t seen her this distressed since she had found a lead to her family. “When we received reports from Coran about the spread of the plant… I didn’t think that it could be that bad when I told you to-”

Pidge pushed her hands under her glasses to wipe her eyes, and Keith could only stare in guilt.

“I gave you the worst advice, Keith.” She croaked. “You can’t hide this from Shiro anymore. You need to tell him.”

Keith gave her a sad look, because he knew that - of course he does. The disease had progressed far quicker than he was used to back on Earth, and it was a common occurrence for him to throw up a petal every morning now. It was driving his appetite away, and his ability to train and fight properly. It was a miracle that he even survived the Trials of Marmora.

_“You know I can’t.”_

He knew he needed to tell Shiro. But he couldn’t bring himself to, because Shiro saw him as nothing more than a friend. Telling Shiro about it now was taking that path where Shiro will undoubtedly force himself to reciprocate Keith’s feelings. Maybe it would work, maybe it won’t, and then they would only be hurting each other with forced affections.

“Yes you can! Why not?”

_“He doesn’t see me that way. He told me that I was like a brother to him.”_

“You can’t possibly believe that?! How could you not see that Shiro loves you romantically?” She was yelling now, out of her chair and braced on the side of his bed with tears that had started to cascade down her cheeks. “You need to tell him, Keith. Or please just remove the plants altogether.”

_“No.”_

Pidge sniffed. “Then what will you do? Die?”

He shrugged, and she glared at him as if he had insulted her with sharp words instead of just his silence. He could say that he smoked some days when it was _bad_ , and that would help a bit. But then that would probably make Pidge hysteric, and him, even at more of a lost than he already was.

“God, you’re selfish,” she huffed and took the datapad back to send a call to the team.

They pretended as if nothing had happened because it had always been like that with Pidge. He appreciated their mutual respect for each others’ privacy, at least.

There were congratulations, there were cries of disbelief, there were updates on the new alliance with the Blade of Marmora - Kolivan even came to compliment his stupidity. But Shiro hadn’t showed up until the very end as everyone was heading back to work.

Pidge gave him an all too expecting glance before she left, and he wished she hadn’t. It gave him a suffocating amount of anxiety as he turned up to see Shiro’s impassive expression that he couldn’t understand.

Shiro sat next to him - they were alone in the room with only the sound of the machines feeding air through Keith’s nose periodically humming. They were silent as Shiro took his palm in his, tracing over the crease, as if memorising and caressing the skin there.

 _“Sorry,_ ” he said, because that was the only thing he could think of that was appropriate. Shiro smiled with a sadness in his eyes and squeezed his hand tighter.

“It’s alright.” He pulled a long breath. Keith had expected Shiro to ask him how he was doing, because Shiro had a habit of asking that every day after Keith had told him about the Hanahaki disease. But instead, “Have you… have the others told you?”

Keith supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised because Shiro had probably read more about his condition than Keith did at that point. _“About?”_

“About… everything?”

He nodded. “ _Yeah. You’ve been busy coming up with a new plan.”_

“Right, we are. And you’re alright with it.” Shiro’s words were slow and careful.

_“There’s not much to agree with.”_

“But you’ll be alright with sitting out?” He was genuinely surprised, and Keith was similarly confused, reeling his head back.

 _“Who says I’m sitting out?”_ He scrunched his eyebrows.

Shiro wiped his hands across his eyes tiringly and sighed. “Guess they didn’t tell you, afterall.”  

Keith’s hands typed rapidly on the datapad, each tap aggressive and loud as his nostrils flared slightly. _“You’re going to exclude me from the team?”_

Shiro stared at him seriously with an hardened will. “Keith, you’re not excluded from the team.”

 _“Why?”_ He wished he could scream the words into Shiro’s face to express the extent of his rage instead of showing a screen with the tiny three letter words and question mark that was almost mocking his entire existence.

“Because you are _sick_.” Shiro said the words as if it were synonymous with death. “And we can’t let you continue to pilot Red like thís.”

Keith could tell where this was headed. Shiro had his mouth hanging open, ready for a request that Keith knew he couldn’t do. “Keith, the only way that we’ll ever let you pilot with good conscience, is if you’ll remove the plants.”

Allura had shown him the scans of his lungs, and the roses that have grown into a bush, spreading over half of his left lung, and a quarter of his right. They had cleaned his lungs of the withered petals and stems where they could, and they removed the thorns protruding through his skin. No one told him he was running out of time, but they hadn’t needed to.

They didn’t ask him to consider surgery, either, and he supposed they meant to leave it for Shiro to tell him. But that didn’t make him any less stubborn in this matter, just as he was since the beginning with Iverson and his warnings.

 _“I’m not going to remove it, and not even you could convince me, Shiro,”_ he tells him. _“I can’t just let it go like that.”_

“Keith,” Shiro breathed, and then he was begging. “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it already is. Please.”

_“No. I’m not doing it.”_

“Why? Just… why make yourself suffer, Keith? Is this love of yours that worth it to risk your life and everything you’ve earned?”

 _“Was Kerberos worth it for you?”_ He stared at Shiro, unwavering.

Shiro was silent as he read the words, seemingly reading them a few times over before he pressed his lips firmly. “What does Kerberos have to do with this?”

_“You chose Kerberos over everything because it was something that you’ve always wanted. You wanted to go to space one last time because you didn’t want to let go of your dreams just yet. My memories are the things I don’t want to let go, Shiro.”_

“But would it be so terrible to let go of something that was causing so much pain?”  

The familiar words rang through Keith’s ears and he was suddenly realised a parallel in this moment that was so ironic that it hurted to think about it. He wanted to laugh at the universe’s sick joke on his life. But he didn’t, and he could only observe Shiro stiffening as he read the words on the screen. _“You sound like Adam._ ”

They’ve been here before.

However, instead of Adam and Shiro fighting about Kerberos with Keith as a concerned third party, it was Shiro and Keith fighting about the roses with Pidge as a loving friend that will undoubtedly be hurt as well when this was over.  

Keith suddenly remembered Pidge’s red rimmed eyes and her futile attempts to stop crying. She really did sound like him, the very day that he had argued with Shiro about Kerberos.

“I regret hurting Adam.” Shiro admitted with his eyes hooded, ashamed and mournful.

_“Do you regret Kerberos?”_

It was a while before Shiro replied with a sombre tone. “No, I don’t.”

A man like Shiro had a lot to regret when there were too many paths ahead to choose from, and the opportunity cost of Kerberos was Adam. For Keith, he only saw two paths that both wounded up with Shiro being hurt, and only one of it where Keith was happy.

Pidge was right. Keith had always been selfish - since the very beginning as a young cadet where he had taken every minute he could with Shiro, greedily and hungrily, until now, grown up and only somewhat wiser than before in love and life.

He was selfish, and he was going to keep Shiro in his memories, even when it killed him and took a bit of those around him as well because it was the best case scenario that he could come up in this reality.

“Keith, I…” Shiro scratched his head in frustration and a confusion that Keith hardly saw. It was as if he was on the verge of panic, but Keith couldn’t bring himself to retrieve his words and take away the worries in the crease of his forehead. He just couldn’t lie to Shiro the way he did to Pidge - Shiro would see straight through it anyways.

“I don’t know what other options you have with this. What if… could you at least reconcile with your crush back on Earth?” Shiro offered.

Keith was already shaking his head in earnest, earning Shiro’s tired sigh. “Why not?”

“ _I can’t. He doesn’t think of me that way. I know for sure.”_

“But you could try again.” He looked at Keith, pleading and his hand grasping Keith’s fingers so tight it was impossible to ignore. “Please, Keith. Try for me.”

It was a cruel blow that made him almost believe that Shiro had known this entire time that  Shiro was his hamartia - the ultimate weakness in Keith’s haphazardly constructed life that would topple in the blink of an eye with the simple words that Shiro spoke.

Yet, looking at Shiro now with hopes burning bright in his eyes that remained so oblivious, Keith didn’t think Shiro had even realised his own words..

There were no more words spoken afterwards. And Keith turned his head away and gritted his teeth to stop himself from whimpering as the door closed softly behind Shiro’s departure.

 

&&&

 

It had gotten to the point where Keith had to be monitored in the middle of the night just in case he would just stop breathing as he did the other day when taking a nap on the lounge with his legs on Lance’s knees. Keith scared him so badly that he couldn’t even crack a joke for the next three days.

Keith woke up in the middle of the night just to gag on another flower, and Shiro was by his side today. He always seem to have flowers to cough up when it was Shiro’s turn to watch him, but that was only natural.

Whole, crimson roses were more common now, and Keith didn’t want to know how much time left that meant.

His throat was so raw and everything hurted so much Keith wasn’t seeing straight anymore - but that might just be the oxygen deprivation talking. The rose just won’t come out,  Shiro had to perform abdominal thrusts to help push it up before the bloody thing finally flew into the bowl they left around.

Everything hurted, his lungs were still on fire despite the rose already dislodged. And he leaned closer to Shiro’s chest whilst a hand rubbed soothingly down his back. Shiro tried to hand him some water, but he waved it away, and allowed his slightly delirious self to rest on Shiro’s shoulder.

He was so tired of everything - he was tired of the stupid disease, he was tired of himself, he was tired of everyone’s concern. He would have flown off by himself by now on Red like when he quit the Garrison, but he was banned from Red and missions as a whole “until his conditions improved,” Coran had said. _Whatever that meant._

He felt himself being tucked back into bed, and the pressure of the bed lessening as Shiro finally moved off. Shiro looked far too tired and beautiful in the room’s hazy lighting, and Keith was if a bit delirious. He was done with everything fucking up his life, and he was sicker than ever. So in a panicked haze and despite his best judgement, he grabbed Shiro’s hand and pulled him back.

He moved himself over to one side of the bed and pulled Shiro in right next to him. And Shiro was unnaturally pliant at this hour of the night, but Keith didn’t question it and snuggled himself into Shiro’s warmth that enveloped him. His arms cradled Keith closer, and Keith let out a contented hum.

He was close to drifting off when he felt something shaking him slightly, and the arm wrapped around him held tightly to him. Keith opened his eyes, and he was faced with a sight that made his heart stop.

The tuft of white hair drooped atop Shiro’s forehead, and the obsidian of his eyes seemed more fragile than usual as it reflected the soft night lights coming from the walls. He was looking at Keith with such distraught that Keith wondered whatever had happened that could break his heart so.

Keith pulled a hand up to cup his cheek, and Shiro jerked slightly before realising it was Keith, then he mellowed. The area underneath his eyes stuck slightly to Keith’s fingertips like remnants of tears that had been wiped off. Shock must have shown on his face, since Shiro frowned and pulled Keith’s hand off his face.

“Sorry, I woke  you up.” Shiro apologised.

“It’s okay.” Keith tried to say, but rasped instead. “What’s wrong?”

Shiro’s melancholy was like a turbulent storm, throwing a million words that remained in his head as his eyes darted to the ceiling. And Keith briefly wondered if pulling him into an embrace would chase that worry away. But Shiro was holding his hand, still - it was something Shiro had started doing a lot as of late - and Keith couldn’t bring himself to ask.

“I don’t want you to die,” he finally said, entirely too emotional. It sounded like he had thought about it too often in the silence of his mind, where the thought was left to fester like bacteria, into a very real fear that finally had him sobbing into Keith’s hair in the middle of the night.

Keith did the only thing he could in that moment: comfort.  “I won’t,” he said.

Shiro choked, “But you will if-”

“I won’t.” Keith repeated. His hand found its way out of Shiro’s grasp rested on his chest, right where Shiro’s heart beated loud and strong beneath the layers of skin and muscles.

“I’ll be _here_.” He said. “I’ll always be alive here.”

The words only made Shiro smile sadly. “Being sappy isn’t going to save you.”

“I know... I’m sorry.”

“You should stop apologising so much.” Shiro chuckled quietly.

“Yeah, Adam told me that too.”

“Really?”

Keith nodded. “He rubbed off too much on you, I think.”

“And on you too, apparently.” Shiro cocked his head slightly, pushing his face closer into Keith’s. “Did he know about your Hanahaki disease?”

“Yeah. Iverson even tried to send him to convince me to do the surgery.”

“And did he?”

“Of course not.” He laughed. “He’s my mentor, he knows how stubborn I am. And he told me he wasn’t about to get around my thickhead, only to find another thicker head behind it.”

“I can’t do that.” Shiro smirked. “Someone’s gotta get through that thick head of yours. Fate of the universe kinda depends on it.”

Keith pulled himself closer into Shiro’s side, savouring the warmth. “Do you miss him?”

“Not anymore.” Shiro’s prosthetic underneath Keith’s head began to pull at the hair at the base of of his neck, playing with it gently. “But I did. People you once had feelings for will always hold that bit of your heart, even if it was only our past selves.”

“And now? Anyone got your heart?”

“I have a more pressing matter on my hand to think about that, don’t you think?”

“You know people _lecture_ about having a work-life balance.” Keith raised an eyebrow, and Shiro laughed at him joyously, and genuinely. It wasn’t something Keith often heard in between the focused silence and stern speeches. He wanted the sound engraved into his mind.

 _This_ , he could happily leave with just this.

Then he felt a pair of lips against his forehead, and he stopped breathing. That was… something that he couldn’t understand? _Was it like… a brotherly thing?_ Surely that was a brotherly thing? Definitely. Yeah. Nothing else. They’re just very close friends - Shiro practically let him crawl on top of him without any complaints.

Yeah… good friends, _right_?

This was giving him a headache. Keith just wanted to sleep and wake up to a perfect world where everything was going the way he wanted.

Shiro took a deep breath and rested his chin above Keith’s head. “Whoever that’s killing you really needs to get his head out of his arse.”

“Oh yeah?” Keith snorted. How stupidly ironic was _this_. “You should tell it to him.”

“I would. In a heartbeat.”

“Hm. I believe you.” Keith hummed, because he didn’t ever doubt Shiro’s genuity towards him, anymore. Things were easy in that aspect, like how easy it was to find physical intimacy with each other in this moment. He wanted to go back to sleep like this.

“Keith?” Shiro turned to him again.

“Hm?” He hummed, and Shiro gave him a glance that Keith couldn’t understand - it was too tender and warm, as if he were admiring what was in front of him.

“You know that I’m always here for you, right?”

“Yeah.” This was leading somewhere he couldn’t see.

“And that I love you?”

 _Not in the way I want you to,_ Keith thought absentmindedly and gave him a blank stare and hoped his words didn’t come out too bitter. He laughed and patted Shiro on his cheek. “Yeah. I know all about your brotherly affections.”

If Keith hadn’t been so close to Shiro’s face, he would have missed the flinch. It took another while before Shiro spoke again. “No. I mean… more than that.”

Keith blinked. His brain was short-circuiting, there was no way to compute this information that he had just received. “What do you mean?”

“I know this is probably the last thing you would want to hear from me, seeing as you’re _clearly_ in love with someone else.” Shiro breathed. “I’m not trying to ruin what we already have. But… know that even if your special someone didn’t love you back, _I do_.”

Perhaps Keith was dreaming, perhaps he was asleep and this was all but another cruel joke of a dream that his mind had conjured, like ones he had in the shack that left him shaking on the worn couch. He wondered if he pinched himself now, would he wake up to the cracks on his ceiling again.

He discreetly pinched himself, and waited to see something else, but he only felt a sharp pain on his forearm. And Shiro was still right next to him.

“Do you mean it?” he dared to utter the words with their faces so close. And he dared to look up at Shiro expectantly for a confirmation. Shiro smiled at him knowingly. “I love you.”

“Romantically?” Keith had always preferred actions and straightforwardness. These words were fathomable in his imagination, in his dreams. It felt surreal. And he needed this. He needed the a confirmation to make sure he wasn’t just projecting his own feelings onto Shiro’s words.

“Yes,” Shiro agreed and pulled a strand of hair from Keith’s face.

“And that other time when you said that I was your _brother in arm_?” Keith could see the red flush crawling up Shiro’s cheeks and ears.

“Right. I was an idiot.”

“You didn’t mean it?”

“I panicked! You were talking so fondly about this guy you liked and he’s back at the Garrison, and I just… Doesn’t matter, anyways.” Shiro bursted all in one breath, and held Keith’s eyes in a piercing gaze. “I love you. And I wish I could save you.”

That was all Keith needed before he pulled their foreheads together, his hands snaking behind Shiro’s neck, and his grin pulled to the widest it could go. Shiro had said it.

Keith felt like he could cry. “You just did,” he whispered.

Slowly, a bewildered frown crossed his face. “What do you mean?” He stared at Keith, wide eyed, then covered his gaping mouth with his left hand as if something had just occurred to him.

“You would have died because of me.” Shiro whispered the words like a dark secret. “I’m sor-”

Keith slapped a hand over Shiro’s mouth, silencing him so suddenly and so physically that somehow he was flustered. Keith tried to keep his face still but he was still too high on relief to before the edge of his lips crept upwards because of how incredibly ridiculous it was that their obliviousness had was on its way to a near-catastrophic ending. Keith was such an idiot. Shiro was equally an idiot.

He smiled. “I would do everything for you.”

When he lowered his hand, Keith was graced with a wide grin as they held each other in a distance where they could feel each other’s skins. More than that, it was distance that they had both longed for and has finally reached, where both can finally speak without it feeling like they were shouting into a void, hoping for an echoing reply.

“We’ll be okay.” Shiro touched their foreheads, his hand pulling Keith flush against him.

It was relief pouring out through his every pores, and Keith found himself crying. Shiro was right, Keith would be alright now. The flowers would stop, and they will wither slowly as time passes. And this wasn’t another repeat of what had once been in some part of their history. Things will get better.

Keith nuzzled his cheek further into Shiro’s hands. This felt right. This was how they were supposed to be: safe, with each other, without worries about the fate of the universe or roses that grew inside his lungs that would eventually snuff out the light in him. Keith could keep these moments with Shiro forever in his heart without fearing the cost on his life.

“Can I kiss you?” Shiro murmured into the air between them. Keith blinked once before their lips met, throwing them into a bliss that only served to remind them of each other’s presence.

They were there in each other’s embrace, relieved and momentarily happy, even if the universe was trying to end itself and them in it. But at least they were together, and Keith knew they would be okay. That much he could be sure of.

And Shiro tasted like everything he could ever ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that immediately after Ep 8: Blade of Marmora is the showdown with Zarkon and Shiro died... :))) I wrote this without remembering that and broke my own heart becuz imagine Keef being by himself again (hopefully Keef would have been entirely rid of the flowers by then or else... that's a story for another day.)
> 
> (also im a ho for asking for kisses)
> 
> If you managed to stick thru 15k of this crap, im really really really just amazed and thankful for your patience! the plan for this was a lot better than how i wanted to execute it. i don't particularly like how this ended, but i hope everyone enjoyed it? 
> 
> *whisper* also i would be eternally grateful if you could leave a tiny comment.
> 
> Come scream at me on [Tumblr](https://meapistrash.tumblr.com/)!


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